February 4th, 2010 - From the Montreal Indoor challenge last weekend
December 23rd, 2009
Christmas/New Years sale.
Aim Projectiles would like to
wish all of our friends in the shooting community and their families
a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. With our economic woes
apparently on the wane we hope that 2010 will be a healthy, happy
and prosperous year for all. And of course we hope everyone's
resolutions come true!
We would also like to thank all of our
customers for their continued support, especially through our
various product R&D phases. 2009 has been an "interesting" year, to
say the least, but your support and feed-back has been deeply
appreciated and has helped us to refine our product line
considerably over the last twelve months.
I just got off the
horn with Bill and he told me he had been thinking of having a
holiday season sale. So if anyone out there wants to buy themselves
a last minute Christmas present, we'll be (as of today) giving a
flat ten bucks off the regular price of a box of any caliber bullets
until January 05, 2010. No purchase limit or anything like that so
you can stock up.
Be well, drive safe and eat too much
turkey!
Rob
November 28th, 2009
Well I guess I can finally officially post that our new, 3rd Generation 124 grain 9mm bullet is now in production. This bullet profile places
more or its mass back in the bearing surface area for maximum stability. We are casting hard with 6% antimony and 2% tin, and we are now plating to .005" thickness per side before final
sizing. We wanted to be able to push these bullets through high-end race guns at maximum velocities, so we needed to go to the heavier plating.
Bill had asked me to hold off posting
a notice until we'd had a chance to prove these out in hard use, but I have been testing this new profile out now for a few weeks in small local matches, practice sessions, and just this
past weekend at the excellent annual Triangle Level III IPSC indoor match held at the Wentworth, Burlington and Brant clubs. The bullet is quite accurate out of my new IPSC Open Division
race gun (built by Josko and Mike at Double Tap Sports), and I am pushing them to 1390 feet per second out of an AET barrel. Actually, according to match chronograph #2 this weekend they
were 1460 feet per second, but I think chronograph #1 was right on the money and matched my own personal chrono at 1389. In any case, not many will argue that you don't generally see
plated bullets holding together or grouping well much beyond 1100 feet per second, but these are definitely getting the job done. I think Bill and the boys at Aim have paid attention to
detail and created a plated bullet that will perform. To all those out there who put their faith in us and hung tight through the different generational phases of our development process,
we thank you. I think the journey has been well worth it to end up with a locally produced, reasonably priced bullet that can handle match conditions with ease.
I have been asked if
I am getting "special" hand-picked bullets to shoot for matches, or if I am sorting individual bullets myself. The answer to both questions is no. I shoot the same bullets as everyone
else, and I don't sort anything. I just take my boxes off the production shelf, load them and go shoot, and for the record I am using them for my match loads. They seem to be working
pretty well as I managed to eke out a win with them at the Triangle. To say I'm pretty happy with this would be understating, but as always I/we will always be looking for new ways to
improve the product line. I guess that is the down side....or the upside depending on how you look at it....of working with an obsessive IPSC competitor like me.
Be well and I'll
see you at the matches.
P.S: don't forget that if you know I am going to be at a match you are attending, you can save yourself some shipping if you let me know what you need in
advance. Just contact via email and we'll sort it out.
August 29th, 2009
I had a chance to do some informal testing on the new 124 grain 9mm bullet this weekend. I discovered I would have an extra hour free that I
could use for my own selfish purposes, so I loaded up 400 rounds of the new, third-generation profile and my new STI IPSC racing pistol and headed out. Since I was pressed for time I
naturally forgot to bring the camera, but here are the short strokes:
Frankly, in this new gun, the Second Generation bullets wouldn't group that well. The Schuemann barrel with its
AET gain twist (razor sharp) rifling is one of the few types of barrels that will have difficulty with plated bullets, and the goal all along has been to get them to shoot in these things.
If they will shoot in an AET, they will shoot in anything. I wasn't sure what I should expect from these new Third Generation bullets, but was hopeful there would be some improvement. I
paced off 25 yards and put up a fresh IPSC target with a small 1" black dot on it for an aiming point. Then, shooting 50 rounds exclusively from an off-hand position, the dot was gone and
I had a nice jagged hole sitting where it used to be! Hmmm, not bad indeed.
Still not quite believing what I was seeing I set up three more targets at the same distance and
proceeded to do the same thing, with the eventual result being that at 25 paced off meters, I can group as well as I can hold with no un-called fliers, so I am well pleased. I haven't
tested at 50m meters yet, but at this distance I can't group any better with jacketed bullets. 250 rounds went to accuracy and the rest for just messing around on a few drills.
This
bullet is a completely new profile, with a pointier nose and more of the material back in the bearing surface for greater sectional density and in-flight stability. They are plated now to
.005" rather than the usual .0035", and I believe it is the combination of these two factors that nailed the elusive accuracy question in the AET barrel. As well, this profile feeds like
butter. Even hand slow-cycling was very smooth. This batch came in slightly heavy at an actual weight of 130 grains, and my first attempt load ended up averaging 1405 feet per second; way
too hot for what I need in an IPSC Open gun. But at those speeds in that barrel, they are certainly grouping. They are sized at .3555" A new mold is already on the way with the same
profile and a true 124 grain weight. Even so, I'm going to be shooting these 130's in my match loads. There's no perceivable increase in muzzle flip for me, and they definitely hit where I
want them to.
I also took some measurements on the new 147 grain 9mm's. I don't have a gun to shoot them out of, but wanted to see how they turned out. I think people are going to
like these.
They are a again, the same basic profile as the new 124's so feeding will be excellent and they should be extremely accurate. Actual plated weight comes in on about 50
random samples that I took at 145 grains, and they are sized at .355" as they are considered a 9mm only bullet. Right about now I'm wishing I hadn't sold the M&P last year. Might be fun to
mess around with a Production gun and a 147 grain bullet behind a super soft pillow of Clays.....
That's what I know for now. I'll get some pix when I can.
Be well and I C-U
at the range.
Rob
August 24th, 2009
My 2009 IPSC techniques workshops are now history. I’m feeling
pleasantly bagged right now as I write this, having run two full sessions of my Level 1 foundation skills workshop and Level 2 movement skills workshop over the past two weekends. This
year’s classes were held for the first time at Waterloo County Revolver Association and the venue proved to be perfect for our needs. It’s a fantastic range and I would like to thank the
Board of Directors of WCRA for hosting this event. I hope to be able to do it again sometime in the near future.
This time I opted for a much smaller than usual class size with only
four people per session. I wanted to focus more on the individual participants, and I’m really glad I did. The small class format felt very comfortable and we were able to absolutely tear
through the many drills I had prepared in record time. Even with all of the material I wanted to cover it never felt rushed and we got a lot of rounds down range. We covered a vast body of
skills in the two full days of each course and without exception, everyone made significant progress.
Many thanks to Arthur, Tom, Dave, Ron, Bea, Eugene, Paul, Andrei and Sidney
for coming out and working your butts off. It was a pleasure working with all of you and thanks to Aim Projectiles for providing sponsorship. Everyone who attended got to take home a
thousand bullets in their choice of caliber and I think being able to come away with a little reward for working so hard was a very nice thing. Aim truly supports our sport and the people
in it.
Be well, and I’ll see you at the range.
Rob
Why .356" for 9mm?
To answer a few folks who have queried us on this:
We chose the .356" diameter over .355" deliberately for the following reasons:
Note that plated bullets are somewhat softer than full metal jackets, and thus more malleable. The .356" diameter tends to give a better gas seal in most guns and results in better
accuracy. Settling on the larger diameter also permits people who shoot 9mm as well as .38 super to use the same bullet, and all of our testing has shown this to be working quite well.
Backing this up further, we have many customers out there who are already shooting these bullets in their 9mm guns with excellent results.
The .356" hard cast, copper plated bullet will not spike your load pressures so you needn't be concerned. Just shoot them and enjoy! As always, when developing loads with a new
bullet, be sure to back off your charge weight a few tenths and chrono your test ammo until you are certain you are in the correct range.
Rob Elliott
March 28th, 2009 - 50 yard test
For those of you who were wondering about shooting Aim Projectiles at 50 yards, I got my chance today (march 28, 2009). The weather today
was wonderful and the range had finally dried up enough for shooting prone at 50 yards.
Having mangled my right shoulder about three years ago, the rollover prone position is
really not a comfortable position for me so as a result I ended up with a few fliers (7 out of twenty rounds), but they were all called. In other words; I knew they were not good shots the
instant I fired them, and pretty much new where they were going to be. They are my fault. The fliers are the ones that are circled.
I'm using a new C-more scope with an 8" minute
dot which covers 4" of target real-estate at 50 yards and as it happens, 4 1/2" in diameter is what the group of 13 rounds that were fired without jerking the trigger measured.
This
is the only target I photographed, but I shot about 200 rounds today for groups at 12, 22 and 50 yards. Results were consistent at all distances. Have a look!
January 23 – 25, 2009 - CTM IPSC Level III IPSC match in Dorval Quebec:
Aim Projectiles got a real workout this past January 23 – 25 weekend at the CTM IPSC Level III IPSC match in Dorval Quebec. The folks at CTM did a great job setting up a challenging
and fun match in an indoor facility. Quebec has some difficult range restrictions so movement can only be accomplished on a horizontal plane at the firing line, but they made maximum use
of the available space and came up with some very interesting stages for us to shoot.
The match had plenty of steel and moving targets, including sliders (fast ones), swingers,
drop-outs, disappearing drop turners and pop-ups. These were combined with up close, blisteringly fast shots and partial or distant difficult shots, forcing shooters to change their tempos
and visual inputs on the fly. As well, many of the stages had multiple possible solutions, so it was a chance to wring out the old lateral thinking machines on the ends of our necks.
Shooting in indoor low light conditions at moving, disappearing, partial and infinitely small steel targets, accuracy was definitely a requirement. Aim’s 124 grain round nose bullets
performed beautifully. All of my shots went exactly where the sights were aligned, and I was able to call my shots with confidence. On one stage there were four mini-pepper poppers placed
behind two full sized poppers, so the front ones had to be cleared in order to shoot the smaller ones at the back. The steel (1/16”?) shroud on one of the front-most poppers was placed so
that from the shooting position it was visually in the exact center of the rear-most pepper popper, essentially cutting it in half. I’d say the distance was between 15 and 18 meters in
low-ish light. Shooting as always for the center of the available target, I hit the leading edge of the steel shroud THREE TIMES before I finally clued in and shot to the side of it,
knocking the popper down. I could see the bullet impacting on the shroud and disintegrating, so I knew I was hitting it. The rest of the stage ended up only one point down from 140
available. That’s 99.3%!
In matches like these it always comes down to a case of “he who makes the fewest mistakes, wins.” Everyone I talked to had some problems at this match, and
I was no exception. But I certainly didn’t have to worry about the plated bullets I was using not performing. They were up to the task of taking first place in Open Division, and I’m
pretty happy with that.
Deconstructing the Right Angle Match:
What has been traditionally known as the annual Triangle match was this year renamed the “Right Angle” match because it was held at two clubs (Wentworth Shooting Sports Club and
Burlington Rifle and Revolver Club) rather than the usual three. Still, they somehow managed to cram 9 interesting stages of fire into those two facilities, and considering the
difficulties and limitations of indoor shooting, I’d say they did a pretty decent job of it. My thanks to everyone who put in the work to bring this event to fruition.
It was a fun
couple of days and my first outing where I got to man a vendor table. It was great fun and very interesting fielding questions and getting input from competitors, and I came to a new
understanding of just how different we all are and how vastly our individual needs may vary. There was a boat load of information to absorb, and we took away many ideas to play with over
the next few months. Bill, Carmen and Janice all came out to represent Aim and get to know our people, and it was great fun introducing them for the first time to the IPSC fraternity.
This was my first level III match using AIM’s first generation production run of 120 grain 9mm round nose bullets, so it was the first REAL test that they would undergo in competition.
Up until this match, I had only been range-testing and messing around with my loads, so going into it there was a certain amount of trepidation that is natural when one does something for
the first time. However, performance more than met my expectations and in their first time out AIM’s bullets managed to pull off a match win!
Yes, it’s an indoor match and there
are no 50 meter targets, but hell, I shot the whole match (681 available points) only down 20 points. On several of the stages I dropped no points at all, but for the whole match I was
down less than 3% and I would have been happy with 10%. And this includes the moving and/or disappearing targets!! Indoors, targets always appear to be farther away than the do outdoors.
It’s a trick of the omni-directional light I guess, but it’s a very real phenomena. Even so, there is no question that even in ugly lighting conditions I can be confident enough to call my
shots and have them consistently land where I point them, without having to visually verify the shot on the paper. This is a confidence builder.
This is not to say I didn’t have a
few stinker stages though. I had a few that I would like to have done over, but I guess everyone else did too.
Until next time, here’s some useful nerdy stuff.
Rob
Sectional density is the ratio of an object's weight to its cross-sectional area. It conveys the ability for an object to overcome resistance. When a projectile is in flight or
impacting an object, it is the sectional density of that projectile which will determine how efficiently it can overcome the resistance to air or object. The greater the sectional density
is for a projectile the greater its efficiency is and therefore ability to overcome the resistance of air and object.
Sectional density is stated as:
SD = Sectional Density
M = Mass of the object, kg or lb
A = cross-sectional area, m2 or in2
or
d = diameter of the circle or the bullet's caliber
Units are kg/m2 or lb/in2. In Europe the derivative unit g/cm2 is also used in literature regarding small arms projectiles to get a number in front
of the decimal separator.
